In the manufacturing of wire, or other similar elongated products, there is a need to remove liquids and contaminants from the surface of the product. For example, in the production of wire, it is necessary that cooling fluids or cleansing acids be removed from the wire prior to spooling, storage, or subsequent processing. It is known in this art to use compressed air to remove liquid or contaminants from wire, or the like, as it passes through a tube. By way of example refer to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,634,236 and 6,267,822, as well as an air wipe product sold by Huestis Machine Corporation of Bristol Rhode Island, and the assignee of the present invention, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. These known air wiping devices use compressed air that is vented into the tube through radially or tangentially directed holes and the liquid is removed by the force of the pressurized air traveling in the opposite direction of the moving wire. There have been numerous problems associated with past attempts to remove liquid from moving elongated members using such prior art methods.
One problem associated with known air wiping devices is that when one desires to change the cable size being processed, the entire air wipe product has to be substituted. Another problem with known air wiping devices is that in order to provide a hard surface in the inner tube of the air wiping device the entire device is usually constructed of a ceramic material as mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,822. This makes the device expensive to manufacture. Also other devices that are used are constructed of materials that do not withstand the wear caused by the passing cable (at high speed), and thus damage to the device is common, particularly where initial misalignment occurs.
Another problem with existing devices is that when they are ganged in series there can be interference from one device to the next adjacent device. This occurs because the exhausted liquid tends to pass in a direction opposite to the direction of conveyance of the elongated member. Thus, there is a tendency for liquid, from a downstream device, to undesirably impact on the upstream device. In many facilities where air wiping devices are used there is a severe space constraint and thus these air wiping devices have to be mounted quite close to each other. The end result is that the ganging of these devices does not attain the desired result, namely of properly drying the elongated member.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved air wiping device in which the discharge from the device is directed so as to not interfere with any adjacently disposed devices.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved air wiping device that is characterized by using two sets of nozzles that direct the output flow from the device in a direction that is substantially orthogonal to the direction of movement of the elongated member being dried.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved air wiping device in which the entire air wiping device does not have to be substituted when one wants to change cable or wire size. Instead, in accordance with the present invention a separable insert is used that enables the substitution of tubing size to accommodate different size cabling or wiring. This insert substitution enables the construction of an overall less expensive device.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an improved air wiping device that is characterized by improved wear resistance. Normally the conventional air wiping device is installed in a production line and it is meant to be perfectly aligned on the central axis of the processed material. It is typical that operators may be too rushed or lazy to perform a proper alignment and thus the body wears out quickly. This usually results in the destruction of the device requiring a complete replacement of the device. However, in accordance with the improved air wiping device of the present invention the ceramic insert bore provides excellent wear resistance and compensates for misalignments. Moreover, the replaceable ceramic insert alone is less costly than the cost of a complete air wiping device.